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EHAM QTH QRZ ARRL HRO ICOM KENWOOD YAESU ELBO ROOM COMMENTS TUESDAY EDITION: An electric pickup the size of a Mini Cooper that has the bed capacity of a Toyota Tacoma and up to 350 miles of range?.....Special town meeting to vote on removing the ban on leaf blowers voted in last town meeting. The blowers won, thankfully, and there is no ban on leaf blowers in Rockport. The tree huggers want us to throw away the gas blowers and go battery. I have a battery powered hedge clipper, I get about 1/2 hour running time before a battery charge or swap. I can't picture blowing my lawn with a battery unit with my 20 odd oak and beech trees....I wood need a dozen batteries each time I went out... MONDAY EDITION: Sunny start to a beautiful day on the island. No time for radio this weekend because I painted the downstairs bathroom. I had patched the corner of one wall as it shrunk, shifted, whatever and looked shitty. No problem, I had the bathroom paint from years ago to match it. Upon touching up the corner, the paint was much darker and looked like shit. My wife suggested I change the color....so I had to paint the whole damn place....now the ceiling looks like it needs a coat and the crown molding is gloss white and looks shabby....I will be lucky if she whom must not be named wants the hardwood floor refinished! You know how thee things go...changing the vanity will be next and the light fixtures.....A small price to pay for all the freedom I have with ham radio gear! GPS Broken? Try TV!GPS and similar satellite navigation systems revolutionized how you keep track of where you are and what time it is. However, it isn’t without its problems. For one, it generally doesn’t work very well indoors or in certain geographic or weather scenarios. It can be spoofed. Presumably, a real or virtual attack could take the whole system down. Addressing these problems is a new system called Broadcast Positioning System (BPS). It uses upgraded ATSC 3.0 digital TV transmitters to send exact time information from commercial broadcast stations. With one signal, you can tell what time it is within 100 ns 95% of the time. If you can hear four towers, you can not only tell the time, but also estimate your position within about 100 m. The whole thing is new — we’ve read that there are only six transmitters currently sending such data. However, you can get a good overview from these slides from the National Association of Broadcasters. They point out that the system works well indoors and can work with GPS, help detect if GPS is wrong, and stand in for GPS if it were to go down suddenly. If all digital TV stations adopt this, the presentation mentions that there would be 516 VHF stations operating with up to 10 kW over two widely separated bands. That adds to 1,526 UHF stations running between 100 kW to 1000 kW. So lots of power and very diverse in terms of frequencies. Coverage is spotty in some parts of the country, though. A large part of the western United States would lack visibility of the four stations required for a position fix. Of course, currently there are only five or six stations, so this is theoretical at this point. The Real StoryIf you read the slide deck, the real story is at the end in the backup slides. That shows the ATSC standard frame and how the preamble changes. The math is fairly standard stuff. You know where the stations are, you know what time they think they sent the signal, and you can estimate the range to each station. With three or four stations, you can get a good idea of where you must be based on the relative receive times. The stations diversify their time sources, which helps guard against spoofing. For example, they may get time information from GPS, the network, a local atomic clock, and even neighboring stations, and use that to create an accurate local time that they send out with their signal. Learn MoreMost of the slides come from more detailed white papers you can find on the NAB website. A lot of the site is dedicated to explaining why you can’t live without GPS, but you can’t depend on it, either. The bottom right part of the page has the technical papers you’ll probably be more interested in. GPS is an impressive system, but we know it needs some help. BPS reminded us a bit of LORAN. A seismic “donk” once rocked the worldOn September 16, 2023, vibrations shook the entire world—and didn’t stop for nine days. The phenomenon started in East Greenland, but in the space of an hour, the strange hums had spread via the Earth’s crust and reached all the way to the other end of the world in Antarctica. Across the entire world, seismic monitoring stations, the ones we typically use to keep an eye on earthquakes and the like, started lighting up in response. But the noise that came through to the seismologists was nothing like the quick, car-crash-like noise that typically occurs with earthquakes. Instead, every 90 seconds, you’d hear this one “donk”—and it looked far from normal on a graph. The cause? A domino-fall that started with climate change. A melting glacier could no longer support a mountaintop in a fjord in East Greenland, and when that mountain top came crashing down it created a mega-tsunami about 650 feet tall. That tsunami then created a rocking seiche, or a standing wave, which was stuck going back and forth inside the narrow fjord. This back and forth motion made the whole planet shake. Luckily, there were no casualties in this remote corner of the world, but it’s another spooky reminder of how climate change can make for strangeness that sends the whole world buzzing. WEEKEND EDITION: We lost a local 26 year old fisherman yesterday 25 miles offshore while scalloping, a dredge cable snapped and killed him and injured another. It took the Coast Guard 2 hours to get him, slow response right out of Gloucester Harbor. It's a dangerous occupation, think of that the next time you eat seafood! ..... New Book Release: Salty Walt’s Portable Antenna Sketchbook– Featuring 15 Portable Antennas, Beautifully Rendered! Join Salty Walt, K4OGO, of the Coastal Waves & Wires YouTube channel, where all the action happens — right on the beach! Ham radio adventure awaits with 15 portable antenna designs. Walt begins with the basics of setting up a quarter- or half-wave vertical, but then draws readers into more experimental designs like his own Coastal 20 or an end-fed vertical made with a Slinky®. Each sketch, reproduced from Walt’s own design notebook, provides wire lengths and practical attachment information. In addition to his sketches, Walt offers portable construction and operating tips, and just enough about counterpoise wires and ground to get you making contacts in no time. This isn’t a heavy-duty treatise on maximally efficient antennas, it’s a book for the “true amateur,” the ham who gets out by the waves with a radio to see what they can make happen. Like Walt says, “This isn’t the Mozart of antenna books, it’s the Jimmy Buffett.” Walt pairs each antenna with a dining spot you can try, whether you’re on Waimea Bay in Kauai, deep in the Big Easy’s French Quarter, or on the long Atlantic stretch of Nags Head, North Carolina. He guides you to the best chowders, fish tacos, crab legs, and more, all while building antennas, making contacts, and soaking up some coastal rays. Salty Walt’s Portable Antenna Sketchbook is now shipping. Order from the ARRL online store or find an ARRL publication dealer; ARRL Item No. 2226, ISBN: 978-1-62595-222-6, $25.95 retail, member price $22.95. For additional questions or ordering, call 1-888-277-5289 toll-free in the US, Monday through Thursday 8 AM to 7 PM and Friday 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern Time. Outside the US, call (860) 594-0200.
Amateur Radio
Newsline Report FRIDAY EDITION: Another day in paradise..
BUY A SHIPWRECK:
Browse Facebook
Marketplace and
you’ll encounter an
assortment of odd
finds: vintage
lamps, used socks,
a car
engulfed in flames.
Dom Robinson found a
3,300-ton, 330ft
long cargo ship that
sank off the Cornish
coast during World
War I. W1AW Facility Closed to Visitors April 28-30 for MaintenanceW1AW, The Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Station at the headquarters of ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio®, will be closed to visitors from April 28 – 30. The station building is undergoing scheduled maintenance that will impact the visiting operator studios. We look forward to welcoming visitors back on Thursday, May 1, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. W1AW Qualifying Runs and bulletin operations will continue as normally scheduled. Ham Bootcamp to Feature Virtual Demonstrations and TutorialsNashua Area Radio Society will be hosting Ham Bootcamp May 10th. The event is designed to provide demonstrations and tutorials to help new hams build a station and get on the air. Topics will include VHF equipment and activities, FT8, emergency communications, and operating via satellites.
Ham Bootcamp takes place over Zoom on May 10th, 2025 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM Eastern Time. Register here. This is a free event. Additional details are available on QRZ. THURSDAY EDITION: The lady below is manufacturing capacitors by the way....The club balloon went down in the Bermuda triangle over night never to be seen or heard again. this is the second balloon to bite the dust over the Bermuda area......
What part is she making????? WEDNESDAY EDITION : Coffee and donut day at the weekly club gathering this morning.....Hamfesters help train Storm Spotters....A Portable Electronics WorkstationYou don’t see them as often as you used to, but it used to be common to see “electronics trainers” which were usually a collection of components and simple equipment combined with a breadboard, often in a little suitcase. We think [Pro Maker_101’s] portable electronics workstation is in the same kind of spirit, and it looks pretty nice. The device uses a 3D printed case and a custom PC board. There are a number of components, although no breadboard. There is a breakout board for Raspberry Pi GPIO, though. So you could use the screw terminals to connect to an external breadboard. We were thinking you could almost mount one as a sort of lid so it would open up like a book with the breadboard on one side and the electronics on the other. Maybe version two? One thing we never saw on the old units? An HDMI flat-screen display! We doubt you’d make one exactly like this, of course, but that’s part of the charm. You can mix and match exactly what you want and make the prototyping station of your dreams. Throw in a small portable soldering iron, a handheld scopemeter, and you can hack anywhere. We’d love to see something like this that was modular. Beats what you could build in 1974. Blog – Hackaday Read More
CAARA Prez launches
balloon yesterday,
its flying high at
40,000 feet TUESDAY EDITION: Track the balloon with u as it heads for Africa.....
Brandon's son holding the half inflated blloon, it will expand as it gets high above earth....he used hydrogen...
Transmitter and solar collector resting on carrying case..... Keep Bears at Bay with the Crackle of 280,000 Volts
You might be better off to put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.... Bears! Are they scared of massive arcs that rip through the air, making a lot of noise in the process? [Jay] from the Plasma Channel sure hopes so, because that’s how his bear deterrent works! [Jay] calls it the Bear Blaster 5000. Right from the drop, this thing looks like some crazy weapon out of Halo. That’s because it throws huge arcs at 280,000 volts. The basic concept behind it is simple enough—a battery drives a circuit which generates (kinda) low voltage AC. This is fed to the two voltage multipliers which are set up with opposite polarity to create the greatest possible potential difference between the two electrodes they feed. The meaty combination is able to arc across electrodes spaced over four inches apart. It’s all wrapped up in a super-cool 3D printed housing that really shows off the voltage multiplier banks. Given its resemblance to a stun gun, you might think the idea is to jab an attacking bear with it. But the reality is, if the bear is close enough that you could press this device against it, you’re already lunch. [Jay] explains that it’s more about scaring the animal off with the noise and light it produces. We’d certainly take a few steps back if we heard this thing fire off in the woods. [Jay] does a great job of explaining how the whole setup works, as well as showing off its raw ability to spark. We’ve seen some great builds from [Jay] before, too, like this beefy custom flyback transformer. Blog – Hackaday Read More
Marathon Monday: My friend Debbie Tupper from Rockport is running her 19th and last marathon today, go Deb!.....I wonder what possesses a guy to study this shit?.....A study published in 2022 revealed a tenuous but plausible link between picking your nose and increasing the risk of developing dementia. Tracking the ISS Made EasyIf you made something blink, and now it’s time for you to make something move, something like a point-to-a-satellite tracker is a great idea. [Farid] made this moving arrow that always points at the ISS, and documented it nicely to boot. And there’s a little bit of everything here, from orbital mechanics and fetching the two-line elements (TLE) from the web, to writing the code to translate that into the tabletop machine’s coordinate system. It looks like [Farid] hadn’t done much 3D CAD before, so he got a chance to stretch those muscles too. Finally, it served as an introduction to resource-constrained programming: “This was the first time I’ve had to think about the size of a compiled binary – the most frustrating part was figuring out that using a C++ stringstream was adding too much code to my binary.” [Farid] is learning a lot here, and you might too. For instance, using pencil lead (graphite) as a lubricant on sliding 3D-printed parts is new to us, but makes sense. We’ll have to try that out. And while this is a simple desktop tracker, with a lot more mechanical design, the same basics could be put to real use for pointing a receiver dish. Of course, who says you need fancy motors and computers to point a satellite dish anyway? If you work on your arm muscles a bit, you could become the satellite pointer. Blog – Hackaday Read More FYI: The 10,000-year history of gumSomewhere between 9,500 and 9,900 years ago, three Scandinavian teenagers were hanging out, chewing gum after a meal. Specifically, they were chewing pitch or tar made from the bark of birch trees. Many millennia removed, archaeologists analyzed the spit out wads and discovered what the teens had recently eaten (red fox, hazelnut, deer, and apple), as well as the state of their oral health (poor). The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports in 2024. It’s among the earliest known examples of chewing gum in the archaeological record, but it’s far from the only one. Humans have been gnawing on rubbery bits of indigestible gunk for a long, long time. Gum chewing independently arose across different cultures and regions at different times, says Jennifer Mathews, an anthropologist at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. In Mexico, for instance, Mayans and later Aztecs chewed chicle, a substance derived from the milky latex of the tropical sapodilla tree. Chicle ultimately led to the creation and commodification of the modern chewing gum we know today, as described in Mathews’ 2009 book, Chicle: The Chewing Gum of the Americas, From the Ancient Maya to William Wrigley. Aztecs also chewed natural bitumen, a petroleum-based material similar to asphalt that often washes up on shorelines, sometimes on its own and sometimes mixed with chicle. It was a central enough part of Aztec culture that they wrote up rules for it. It was considered uncouth for anyone besides young children or elderly women to chew it publicly, says Mathews. Elsewhere, people chewed on gums derived from plants like mastic in ancient Greece–which became the root of the word mastication–terebinth resin in Central Asia, or spruce gum among Indigenous Americans. “They’re using what they have in their environment to fix a problem,” says Mathews. Clearly, as it showed up so many times in so many places, gum served a need. Why we chewIn the absence of toothpaste and dentists, people found their own ways to keep their mouths feeling as hygienic as possible. Chewing gum filled in some of those gaps and its primary purpose across cultures was to clean the teeth, freshen the breath, and boost oral health, Mathews explains. Mastic and chicle alike are commonly described as having pleasant, sweet, and piney or woodsy flavors– probably a preferable smell and taste to whatever bits of food might linger between the teeth after meals. Today, sugar free gum can offer some smile benefits, according to the American Dental Association (though overdo it and you could end up with a jaw disorder).
EASTER EDITION: We have a Tech-in-a- Day course today at the CAARA clubhoue, it looks like ten are signed up.... Inside a Fake WiFi Repeater
Over the years we have seen a lot of fake electronics, ranging from fake power saving devices that you plug into an outlet, to fake car ECU optimizers that you stick into the OBD port. These are all similar in that they fake functionality while happily lighting up a LED or two to indicate that they’re doing ‘something’. Less expected here was that we’d be seeing fake WiFi repeaters, but recently [Big Clive] got his hands on one and undertook the arduous task of reverse-engineering it. The simple cardboard box which it comes in claims that it’s a 2.4 GHz unit that operates at 300 Mbps, which would be quite expected for the price. [Clive] obtained a real working WiFi repeater previously that did boast similar specifications and did indeed work. The dead giveaway that it is a fake are the clearly fake antennae, along with the fact that once you plug it in, no new WiFi network pops up or anything else. Inside the case – which looks very similar to the genuine repeater – there is just a small PCB attached to the USB connector. On the PCB are a 20 Ohm resistor and a blue LED, which means that the LED is being completely overdriven as well and is likely to die quite rapidly. Considering that a WiFi repeater is supposed to require a setup procedure, it’s possible that these fake repeaters target an audience which does not quite understand what these devices are supposed to do, but they can also catch more informed buyers unaware who thought they were buying some of the cheap real ones. Caveat emptor, indeed. Blog – Hackaday Read More HAMS YOU MIGHT KNOW- ALIVE AND SK K1TP-
Jon....Editor of As The World
Turns....
SILENT KEYS Silet Key
KA1BXB-Don...Regular
on 3900 mornings....just
don't
mention
politics
to
him,
please! |